


Alone With You

by mollymauks



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, PTSD!Caleb, THIS BE A TROPE FEST Y'ALL, amnesia!molly, but this about sums it up for this one i think, cuddling for warmth, fireside talks, good ol' guard duty flirting, i'll add more tags to the next chapter bc it's going to get More Intense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-24 00:39:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14344305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollymauks/pseuds/mollymauks
Summary: Prompt: Molly and Caleb: Scared/Ashamed to sleep because of their nightmares.Caleb wakes up intending to relieve Molly of the guard duty for the night, but the tiefling insists on staying awake and the two end up sharing the watch.Teaser:  “Caleb,” Molly said, in that way where he caused his voice to drip with a saccharine sweetness that made Caleb simultaneously fight the mad, battling desires to punch and kiss his stupid, smug mouth.





	Alone With You

The fire had burned down to embers by the time Caleb awoke.

As he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, the image the world chose to present to his slightly blurry vision was the slender outline of Mollymauk silhouetted by the ghost of the flames that had filled their campsite when he had dropped off to sleep.

He was rocking absently where he sat, sitting with his legs crossed, his head slightly bowed, though he glanced up every now and then. His tail was waving idly back and forth over one shoulder in the way it moved when he wanted to try and tease Frumpkin. The firelight gilded the honed edges of his scimitars, placed deliberately at his back within easy reach if he needed them.

There was a strange, ethereal beauty to the tiefling framed by the fire as he was now, and Caleb found himself sitting still and silent for almost a full minute, just watching the hypnotic rhythm of Molly’s tail, before he came to himself with a start.

Pushing himself up he picked his way through the hunched shapes of his friends. Nott was curled into her usual tight ball, her knees almost in her mouth. Beau curled up on her side, completely covered by blankets. Fjord lay on his back, one hand behind his head, while Jester sprawled like a starburst, limbs, and hair, and tail everywhere, taking up far more room than she should have been able to with her size.

Molly glanced over his shoulder as Caleb approached. The last light of their dying fire made his red eyes burn. Caleb knew full-well that most people would have been scared senseless by the sight of those eyes looming at them from the darkness of the night. He knew that many would have seen the demons that Molly’s ancestors had hailed from. But he…He found comfort in them, now.

Molly had overwhelmed him when they had first met, and for some time afterwards. With his red eyes, and lavender skin, deep purple hair, and patterned rainbow silk cloak, the tiefling seemed a deliberate walking assault to the senses. The red of those eyes had burst with fire, and heat, and passion, and lust. Strong, raging, sharp emotions that drew the eyes and demanded attention.

Now he realised that, much like the glowing embers, that red and those eyes could contain a gentle, soothing warmth, which was more a comfort to wake up to on a cold, dark night than he could ever explain.

Molly smiled as Caleb stood over him, but made no move to get up. Frowning slightly, Caleb settled himself down on the soft, cold grass beside him and, keeping his voice low so as to avoid waking the others, he said, softly, “Your watch is up, it’s my turn until dawn, you can go and get some sleep, now.”

“Tempting as that is,” Molly said, rolling his shoulders idly, “I’ll do you a favour and just keep going.” He patted Caleb’s hand where it was braced on the ground beside him and added, “You can go back to bed, get your beauty rest,” he winked.

“That is...Generous of you,” Caleb said, frowning slightly, since it didn’t particularly seem generous at all, but he couldn’t identify what else it could be at the moment, and that seemed like the right thing to say. “But, really, you need to get your sleep. We swap people out for a reason, Molly, no-one can stay alert for an entire night alone.”

“ _Caleb_ ,” Molly said, in that way where he caused his voice to drip with a saccharine sweetness that made Caleb simultaneously fight the mad, battling desires to punch and kiss his stupid, smug mouth.

“Yes, Molly?” he sighed, when it became apparent as Molly remained with that ridiculous grin on his face, tail lashing playfully back and forth behind him, that he wasn’t going to spit out whatever it was he wanted to say unless Caleb indulged him.

“You fuss too much,” Molly informed him, the tail arcing out like a long, thin lavender snake and tapping him lightly in the small of the back. “Now, off to bed with you,” he said in a brisk, commanding tone, “There’s no reason the two of us should be freezing our tails-“ he raised a finger in Caleb’s direction in a hushing motion, obviously noting him opening his mouth to challenge this, and amended irritably, “ _metaphorical tails_ off. Go back to the warm, and have sweet dreams of me.”

He fluttered his eyelashes at Caleb who cleared his throat and pointedly looked away so he couldn’t see him anymore.

“I think there is no reason _you_ should continue freezing your literal tail off when you could go back to bed and let me take the watch as I’m supposed to,” he said, unable to understand the ulterior motive behind Molly wanting to remain awake and on watch. Because he was _Molly_ , so of course there was an ulterior motive.

“You’re a very strange soul, Caleb, have I ever told you that?” Molly said, conversationally, bracing his palms behind him and lolling back, leaning his weight on them and extending his long, slender body in an irritatingly distracting way, with very clearly no intention of getting up to go to bed any time soon.

“I believe you have, yes, several times if my memory serves me, and it usually does,” he replied, stiffly.

He’d had nice, sensible, orderly plans for this quiet time alone. They had included a lot of reading, perhaps some transcribing of spells, and approximately no flirtatious, irritating, _impossible_ tieflings who refused to surrender the watch.

“Well I’ll say it again now,” Molly replied smoothly. He was always so quick. Every reply and retort seemed to have formed in his head before Caleb had even finished stuttering out his own words. He felt clunky, and awkward, and even more socially useless than usual around Molly, and it was not a pleasant experience. “You’re a strange soul, Caleb. If I’d offered this to Fjord he’d have chewed my hand off at the chance of a few extra hours of sleep, but you want to fight me on it.” He mock-pouted, pushing his lip out like a child denied sweets, and making his large red eyes even larger in an attempt to inspire pity, “Why do you want to fight me?”

“I do not want to fight you,” Caleb protested, wondering how this conversation had managed to turn around on him already. “But I don’t feel entirely safe leaving you on watch for another four hours when you’re bound to be exhausted.”

“Do I _look_ exhausted?” Molly demanded, one eyebrow raised.

Caleb squinted at him, trying to decide. The tiefling was notoriously difficult to read. He hid almost everything behind that smile that seemed to be perpetually tugging at the corners of lips. Caleb was quite certain he’d manage to look idle and nonchalant with one foot through death’s door. It was infuriating.

“It doesn’t matter how you look,” he said, finally, after he realised he’d been staring at Molly a little too long since the asking of his question, “It matters that you’ve had no sleep, and you _will_ be tired. I can’t just leave you alone when it might result in us all getting eaten by a dragon or some such because you were too tired to notice.”

Molly snorted at that, “Caleb, I think I might have to be _dead_ to not notice a giant dragon eating our companions, not just a little drowsy.”

They stared at each other for a long moment like a weathered cliff-face and the relentless tide, both of them utterly convinced of the rightness of their own existence, neither willing to yield an inch to the other.

Finally, Molly broke the silence, and the slight tension, between them with a soft laugh and an uncaring shrug. “Have it your way, then,” he said, “Two pairs of eyes are better than one, we’ll both keep watch, and when you’re complaining about your pinky toe falling off due to frostbite tomorrow I promise not to say ‘I told you so’ too often.”

Caleb frowned yet again. It was amazing how often Molly could coax that expression from him, in a myriad of different ways, no less.

“Aren’t you concerned about your pinky toes?” he asked, doing a slight double-take a second after the words left his lips as he realised exactly how ridiculous the conversation they were currently having was.

Molly smirked, cocked his head to one side, and let his voice drop to a low purr as he said, “Save your fussing for something else, sweetheart, I run hot.”

“I’ve noticed,” he muttered, without thinking.

Molly’s grin became razor-edged and near-feral, his red eyes sparkling as his tail lashed back and forth.

Caleb felt his face burn and sincerely hoped it was either too dark for Molly to see, or that he’d assume it was a reflection of the dying fire. Judging by his satisfied smirk, however, Caleb was fairly certain he could see, and was under no illusions whatsoever about the cause of his flushed cheeks.

Molly, still leaning back on his elbows, tilted his head towards the sky and closed his eyes, humming softly in contentment as a light breeze ran its fingers through his hair. He inhaled deeply, a soft, relaxed smile settling over his face.

Caleb drank in the sight of him greedily. It was rare to see him in these moments, relaxed, almost vulnerable. There was a strange intimacy to it, to watching the softness of his face, the gentle lines it fell into when he relaxed and let his guard down. He felt both privileged, and also as though he was staring at something sacred, something divine, that was not meant for his mortal, unworthy eyes.

Molly played a good game. He came across as always at his ease, unconcerned about everything, but Caleb knew that was a front, a mask he donned to hide whatever truths would otherwise be revealed. No-one looked too closely at someone like that, at someone who didn’t seem to care about anything, and who was freely open about how much bullshit they regularly spilled for little more than their own entertainment.

But Caleb knew the cost of such a front, the effort it took to maintain it, the constant tension that filled the body of a person who was forcing themselves at every turn to edit their responses and maintain this carefully crafted persona.

Watching it drop, now, as Molly’s eyes were closed, and the smile on his face was not broad, or smug, or sarcastic, but soft, barely there, and slightly crooked, with one side higher than the other, was a strange experience. It made Molly look younger, and so different, as though another person entirely was sitting in this quiet, grassy field with their face tipped up bask in the gentle gilding glow from the stars in the heavens above.

And it made Caleb feel as though he knew him better in this singular moment with the two of them alone together in the darkness than he had in all the time they’d been travelling together.

He had opened his mouth to push further but...really, what did it matter if they both sat up? What did it matter why Molly wanted to remain on watch? Maybe he, like Caleb, simply enjoyed the peace and solace that could only be found in the quiet, peaceful nights spent alone with no-one to speak at you but the soft voice of the wind, and no touch but the kiss of the cold against your skin, with no-one watching you but the thousands of glittering eyes in the distant darkness above.

He liked everyone that he was travelling with, was perhaps even fond of them, at this point, and would miss not travelling with them. But he still enjoyed the quiet, still enjoyed the peace, and privacy, and relaxed solace that only came with solitude, that could never be found by day while travelling with a group the way that they were.

“Do you mind if I summon a few lights so I can read my books?” Caleb asked, “I can’t see in the dark the way you can.”

Molly smiled, his tail lazily swaying back and forth, like a snake before a charmer. He leaned forwards, smiling, “What if your lights draw some fell beast down upon us? Perhaps I should just read it to you instead.”

Caleb opened his mouth to protest that he had to copy the spells over, and that Molly likely wouldn’t be able to make sense of it, anyway, then he closed it.

“Alright,” he said, relishing the small blink of surprise that slipped through Molly’s idle composure.

He handed over the book he was working on, opened at the last page he had left off, then balanced his spell book open on his knee, dipped his pen in an inkpot and looked up expectantly at the tiefling.

Molly was moving the book, which he had balanced open in one long-fingered hand, closer and further from his nose, as though this might help him decipher it. His eyebrows knit together, and Caleb had to bite his lip to stop himself laughing at him.

Finally, Molly cleared his throat, straightened his back officially, and proceeded to announce as though he was doing a dramatic reading for a tavern full of half-drunk folks he was hoping would toss a few silver his way, “This is complete and utter gibberish.”

Caleb smiled and gently took his book back, stating primly, “No, it is just Zemnian.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” Molly asked, waving an elegant hand as he lounged back, propping himself up on an elbow, “Gibberish, Zemnian, six and half a dozen, isn’t it?”

“Not really, no,” Caleb said, frowning. Then he smiled, “It was amusing to watch you struggle, though.” He jolted slightly as Molly whacked him lightly on the back with his tail, scowling slightly. He huffed out a soft laugh, “You can’t be the only one who gets to have fun around here, you know,” he said, his smile growing more broad.

Molly held his hands up in a gesture of mock-surrender, “You’re right, you’re right, it was very amusing.” He waved his hand idly and said, “Light up the whole campsite if you like, I don’t care, I’m staying up either way.”

Caleb nodded vaguely then summoned his dancing lights, smothering them with a rag to make a hooded lantern which he could use to read by, but which wouldn’t disturb his sleeping companions.

Molly managed to maintain the silence for all of ten second before he was peering over Caleb’s shoulder at the scrawls of Zemnian notes and magical script and symbols that were indecipherable to him. Then he laid his chin on Caleb’s shoulder and said conversationally, “You should teach me, one day.”

Caleb blinked over at him, rolling his shoulder gently to dislodge Molly, who obligingly withdrew, “Teach you what? Magic?”

“Well, if you really want,” Molly shrugged, “But I was more meaning Zemnian.”

Caleb frowned again, “Really?”

“Sure,” Molly said lazily, plucking up a long blade of grass and plaiting it seemingly effortlessly with his long, dextrous fingers, which entirely consumed Caleb’s attention for a moment before Molly’s voice jolted him back to reality, “I figure I should at least be able to say the important things in every language.”

“That is...A good policy,” Caleb said, unable to keep a note of caution and suspicion from his tone, since this seemed entirely too.... _Reasonable_ for Molly.

This feeling was confirmed a moment later when Molly rolled onto his stomach, smirking up at Caleb and said, with a distinct purr in his voice, “I feel the important things to be able to say in any language are ‘fuck you’ and ‘fuck me’. If I can do that, I’m golden.”

Caleb flushed again, cleared his throat, and pointedly returned to his book.

Molly crawled a little closer and opened his mouth again but Caleb, growing a little impatient, said, “Mollymauk, I appreciate a conversation with you sometimes.  This is not one of those times. I would like it if you would just let me get on with my work, please?”

Molly pushed himself up, eyed Caleb for a long moment with his head cocked to one side like a confused puppy, then he gave a little half-shrug and nodded, “Of course,” he replied evenly, “Whatever you like.”

The tiefling then promptly flopped onto his back, gazing up at the expansive heavens spread above them and spattered by stars. Caleb gave him another moment of consideration as he realised he had never really seen the tiefling get angry, or even mildly frustrated, by anything the others did.

Then, savouring the peace and quiet at last, he dedicated himself to his book.

A few minutes later he was jolted out of his focused study by the grating sound of metal rasping against stone.

Suddenly painfully alert, he allowed his palm to blacken with fire, feeling the scalding through his veins, ready to use it, ready to-

Molly’s soft, dark laughter made him turn his head, looking down to see him, realising he had stood up without realising it.

“Relax,” Molly said, smiling, “We’re not in danger, which you’d know if you were actually paying attention.” He gave him a broad, lazy smirk, fangs exposed, “Good thing I stayed up after all, eh?”

Caleb pursed his lips and said, “If I was alone I would be paying less attention to this,” he held his book up, “And more attention to this,” he gestured around at the dark night around them.

Molly laughed softly, “I thought you didn’t want me to stay up,” he said, cocking his head slightly to one side.

“I said it was unnecessary, and that you should get to sleep. I did not say that I didn’t want you to stay up.”

“Well that’s good to know,” Molly replied mildly, “I was almost insulted you thought so little of my company.” Caleb opened and closed his mouth several times, not sure how to respond. Molly huffed impatiently and tugged at his hand, “Sit down,” he urged him, “You’re making me nervous with your hovering.”

Caleb settled himself on the ground once more, then glanced back at Molly, frowning slightly, “What was that noise?”

“You mean this noise?” Molly smirked. From the ground he picked up one of his scimitars and a small, palm sized whetstone which he drew along the curved blade, replicating the rasping sound that had startled Caleb earlier.

Molly laughed again at Caleb’s reaction, then tossed down the stone, and delicately laid the scimitar beside its fellow with a shrug. “I can stop if it bothers you,” he said, “Though it’d probably benefit you if my swords were sharp.”

“It doesn’t bother me,” Caleb murmured.

“Good,” Molly chirped brightly, promptly picking up the scimitar and whetstone once again.

As Molly returned to his work, he found that, now anticipated, the rhythmic sound was actually quite soothing. He also found that his attention began to wander from his book to the light gilded form of Mollymauk sitting beside him. His hands were deft and sure in the practiced way they moved along the blade, pausing the rhythm of his strokes every few minutes to check the edge.

Caleb felt Molly’s red eyes on him as the rasping of the whetstone stopped for longer than it typically did. He cleared his throat, trying to ignore the pleased smirk that spread across the tiefling’s face, as if he knew exactly what Caleb had been thinking, and exactly why those scarred, long-fingered lavender hands of his were capturing his imagination, and returned to his book.

It was incredible, truly. He had sat in leaking inns with wind whistling between cracks in the wooden walls, rain battering the windows, as the storm made the very foundations creak, the roof leaking, and had found it almost no trouble to concentrate on his studies. Yet all it took was one flamboyantly dressed, ostentatious tiefling sitting so close Caleb could feel the inviting heat seeping from his skin to make it almost impossible to write more than a few words at a time.

He gripped the pen more tightly and, frowning, forced himself to focus. He needed to get this spell done some time before dawn and-

A sharp hiss and curse from Molly had him sitting up, the nib of the pen snapping as he pressed it down too hard onto the page. Looking over he saw blood welling on the ball of Molly’s thumb. Glancing down, his own fingers were stained with the dark liquid of the ink that oozed from the pen in a similar way the blood wept from Molly’s skin.

“Sorry,” Molly offered, looking down at the now ruined page in Caleb’s book.

“It is alright,” Caleb said, and it was, mostly, thanks to Molly’s distracting presence he had made barely any headway at all with the spell. A dedicated five minutes without the intrusion of purple tieflings would catch him up. “Are you?” he found himself asking.

“Mm?” Molly replied, absently, now sucking on his cut thumb.

“Alright, I meant,” Caleb pressed.  

Molly smirked, his fangs tinted faintly red, “Caleb,” he said, smiling and cocking his head to one side, “It’s very sweet of you, but you should have noticed by now I’m not very easily bothered by pain.”

Covered in scars as he was, this assertion should have made Caleb feel foolish for asking after him. Instead he felt a strange, soft tinge of sadness.

“Still,” Caleb murmured, “I thought I should at least ask.”

Molly opened his mouth, no doubt to toss out one of his frequent quick quips, then he closed it again, studying Caleb. He fiddled idly with a loose thread in his trousers for a moment then, without looking up, said softly, “Thank you.”

There was a pregnant silence, in which neither of them seemed to know what to say. Molly broke it with a bright, “Well, I’d definitely say this one is sharp enough now,” he laid the first scimitar down and picked up the second, allowing them both to relax in the wake of the rhythm of stone against steel.

A breeze picked up, making the grass around them ripple in waves, as though it had been transformed to a pond of star-dappled emeralds and a stone had been tossed into it. Caleb shifted a little, cursing quietly in Zemnian and tugging his coat more tightly around himself.

There was a soft clink of metal on metal as Molly set down his second sword and said, “Problem?”

Caleb shrugged his shoulders noncommittally and muttered, “Just cold.”

Molly snorted softly in reply and Caleb blinked up at him, frowning slightly, “Is that all?” he said, mildly.

Caleb opened his mouth irritably to point out that _some_ of them might be tieflings with fire in their blood and the ability to stay warm while encased in an ice cube, but others were only human, and weren’t accustomed to sleeping outdoors as Winter drew in- But he had barely opened his mouth when Molly had scooted right next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, coiling his tail around his waist, and tossing a blanket around them both.

“You should voice your problems more often, you know,” Molly told him conversationally, as though completely unaffected by their proximity, while Caleb struggled to remember how to breathe, “Especially when they have such simple solutions.”

“I, I- Molly, this is really not necessary, I-“ he began, torn between the comforting warmth of Molly that was already seeping into him and relaxing his cold-stiff muscles, and the rush of heat in his core that had nothing to do with shared body heat, and everything to do with his aching awareness of how close Molly was.

“’Course it is!” Molly said, brightly, “Can’t have our wizard freezing to death when it’s so easily prevented.” He squinted to the side and withdrew slightly, pulling his upper body away, though his tail remained curled around his waist, “Although,” he added, “If it’s a problem, I can-“

He made to pull further away and Caleb found himself reacting a little too quickly, “No, no it is not a problem, I-“ he broke off, cleared his throat, and said as composedly as he could, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Molly replied, winking at him.

Silence claimed the camp once again and Caleb returned to his books. Molly’s warmth and the softness of his body against his was oddly comforting and he found himself relaxing, savouring the warmth and the contact from the tiefling.

Molly seemed to sway beside him, his head nodding, blinking rapidly and giving himself little shakes. Caleb noted this, but chose not to comment on it. If it was selfish, that he didn’t want Molly to leave him alone in the cold for his bedroom, then he couldn’t be blamed for that, surely?

After a long while, Caleb oddly finding that he focused better with Molly right beside him, leaning heavily against him, worked on his notes, scrapping the ruined page and starting afresh, feeling the tiefling’s red eyes following the rhythmic progress of his pen.

There was a strange beauty in it, Caleb had found, a hypnotic quality to the flow of smooth black ink on the rough pale parchment, and he could feel Molly being drawn into it. It gave him a strange sense of heady power, to have him so close, so focused on his movements, on his study, on the thing he had dedicated his life to.

A half hour later, however, Molly had rested his head against Caleb’s shoulder, letting him take almost his full weight, which he was happy enough to do. He had rarely seen Molly this truly comfortable. Oh the tiefling acted it well, he seemed not to care about anything or anyone, but there was always at least a part of him that remained switched on and alert. All of that was gone now.

A while later, still, Caleb realised that Molly’s breathing had deepened and, with a start, he glanced up and realised he had fallen asleep.

A small smile tugging at the corners of his lips, Caleb gently rearranged the blanket around his shoulders to make sure he was completely covered, then returned to his reading.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you SO much for the feedback on other Widomauk stuff I've posted!!! The response has been honestly Insane and I'm very, very grateful. I'm not sure when the next chapter will be up but it WILL be up before my dying day, I swear, and will feature: nightmares, nightmare talk, Bonding Over Issues, and probably more flirting bc Molly is involved. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, y'all!!! if you have a second a comment genuinely makes my day, oh and I have one of those kofi/tip-jar thingies too if you're that way inclined!: https://ko-fi.com/P5P3BUZ7


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